As already mentioned, Haig was the founder of the Armenian kingdom. He
can scarcely be called a king, because in his time there was not a
great Armenian nation; it was rather a tribe, and Haig was chief or
governor. His position was like that of Abraham; what would now be
called a sheikh; and like Abraham, he was a worshiper of the true God.
Haig went from the highlands of Armenia to the plains of Shinar to
help build the Tower of Babel. During the progress of the work, Belus,
a warlike giant, descended from Ham, assumed to direct the enterprise;
Haig would not submit to this, and so returned to his own country. When
the undertaking failed, all the tribes became scattered. To wreak
vengeance on Haig, Belus resolved to go to Armenia, kill him in fight,
and reign over his land. When he reached Armenia with his men on
his errand, Haig went with a force to meet him; a great battle took
place and Haig was victorious, killing Belus and saving his country
from being overwhelmed by the Hamites. His spirit was inherited
by his posterity, though recent irresistible force and refusal of
permission to bear arms may seem to make them submissive. They have
battled stoutly against awful odds and with insufficient means for
liberty and for freedom of thought and conscience; and millions have
lost their lives for those principles; if they could now have arms
and help, they would fight and die again for them.
After the repulse of this Hamitic invasion, the Armenians increased
so rapidly that Haig became a real king and took that title, thus
actually founding the Armenian Kingship. They were free, lived long
lives, and married only one wife each,--all favorable conditions for
growth of population,--it need not be pointed out how slavery and
polygamy check national growth. And they kept their faith in the one
true God, as their ancestor Noah did.
Haig's son Armen succeeded his father, and greatly enlarged the
kingdom. He subdued a large district northeast of Mt. Ararat and
built cities and towns there. It is most likely the name Armenia comes
from him. Some recent foreign writers have the impudence to say that
there was no such king, but that his name was made up to account for
that of Armenia; but the same records which tell us of Haig, tell us
of his son. After Armen we find his son Armaiss, who built the city
of Armavir.
I will not enumerate all the names of the dynasty; it would only be a
tedious catalogue without profit. I will only mention the most noted
ones, and those most interesting from their relations with the Jews
or the heathen nations.
One of the notable kings is Aram, the seventh in succession, and the
greatest of Armenian conquerors. He raised and drilled an army of
50,000 men, whose efficiency and his own military skill and energy
are proved by his invading and conquering Media. He then invaded
Assyria and conquered a part of that country. Next he marched
westward and subjugated some of the eastern portion of Asia Minor
inhabited by the Greeks,--the later Cappadocia, along the Halys or
Kizil-Irmak. Aram named this district the Hayasdan, translated by
the Romans as "Armenia Minor"; which, oddly enough, in later times
became Greater Armenia or Armenia Proper. Aram set over this province a
governor named Mishag, with instructions to compel the Greeks to speak
Armenian. Mishag built a city which exists in Cappadocia (Karamania)
to-day, frightfully familiar from recent events. He called it by his
own name; the Greeks mispronounced it as Mazag; the Roman emperors
afterwards named it Caesarea, which the Turks corrupted into Kayseri,
and several thousand Armenians were massacred there some months ago,
which will be described further on. The richest and most enterprising
Armenians in the Turkish Empire are from Kayseri, and it is a leading
missionary station of the American Board. The writer preached there
and in that vicinity for four years.
The enormous growth of the Armenian Kingdom under Aram, and its
conquest of part of Assyria, excited the alarm of the Assyrian king,
Ninos. Not feeling strong enough to engage in open warfare with him,
he thought to compass his destruction by winning his friendship and
then putting him out of the way, and, as a first step, sent him a
costly jeweled crown. The intrigue failed, however, and Aram lived
to a great age, reigning fifty years.
Aram was succeeded by his son Ara, called "Ara the Beautiful." The
fame of his beauty went abroad through the world; the Assyrian queen
Semiramis was so enchanted by the sight of his person that she fell
madly in love and proposed marriage to him, but he refused her. This
military Amazon was not to be balked so. She resolved to marry him
by force, and came with a great army to Armenia to capture the prize;
but he was killed in the war, and she took possession of the country,
with which she was so charmed that she decided to remain; she removed
the capital of the enlarged Assyrian Kingdom to the lovely shores of
Lake Van, erecting a palace there for herself, and building on the
eastern side a city named "Shamiramaguerd" (built by Semiramis). Many
years later, a king of the Haigazian Dynasty whose name was Van rebuilt
it and called it after himself. This was the present city of Van,
another great center of the American Board and of Turkish horrors.
The next great interesting event was in 710 B.C. when Sennacherib of
Assyria was assassinated by his two sons, Adramelich and Sharezer, who
escaped into Armenia. The king of Armenia at this time was Sgayorti,
which means "son of a giant." He received the sons of Sennacherib
with great kindness; they married Armenian women, and remained in
the country till their death. Their descendants were great Armenian
princes, bearing the titles Prince Arziroonian and Prince Kinoonian.
Armenia comes to view again in connection with Biblical history in the
capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, 600 B.C., and the deportation
of the Judean people; the Armenian king, Hurachia, was one of his
allies in the siege, and on returning to Armenia carried with him a
Hebrew prince named Shampad. This was a very intelligent man, and made
himself greatly loved and esteemed by the Armenians; a sort of Daniel
or Joseph. He, too, married an Armenian noblewoman, and his descendants
became the very foremost of the noble families and ecclesiastical
functionaries of the country, crowning the kings on occasion. They
were called Pakradoonian Princes, and at last one of them founded the
third dynasty of Armenian kings, the Pakradoonian. Though the nation
is Aryan, there is noble Hebrew (Semitic) blood mixed with it.
Perhaps the most interesting part of the Haigazian Dynasty comes
just before the end; the time of Dikran or Tigranes I. In him both
wisdom and valor were combined to an eminent degree. As soon as he
succeeded his father, Yerevant, he instituted great reforms to improve
the state of the country. He not only enlarged it by conquest, but he
greatly improved public education and morals, removed obstructions to
international commerce, introduced navigation on the lakes and rivers,
encouraged cultivation; trade flourished, every acre of ground was
tilled, the country was alive with energy and hope. This vigor and
prosperity aroused the envy of Ashdahag, King of Media; he resolved
to kill Dikran, and to throw him off his guard married his sister,
Princess Dikranoohi. A plot to murder Dikran was then set on foot;
the princess learned of it, warned her brother, whom she loved,
and ran away. Dikran collected an army, made a rapid march to Media,
surprised and slew Ashdahag, and brought back a vast amount of spoils
in captives and goods. He built a fine city on the banks of the Tigris,
and called it Dikranagerd, the city of Dikran; it was afterwards the
residence of the sister who had saved his life. It is now called by
the Turks Diarbekr, and was the scene of a frightful massacre a few
months since. The most important political achievement of his life was
assisting Cyrus in the capture of Babylon 538 B.C.; the two monarchs
were very friendly, and Dikran's Armenian army was a chief factor in
the conquest. In Jeremiah's prophecy of the capture, about a century
before it occurred, he mentions the Armenian Kingdom as one of the
actors: "The Kingdoms of Ararat, Minni, and Ashchenaz." (Jer. li. 27.)
After Dikran's death his son Vahakn succeeded him; he was considered
a god by the people, and worshiped as such through a monument after
his death. Thus far the people had mostly worshiped the one true God,
but from this time they relapsed into heathenism for a while on account
of the influences pressing on them from outside. The last king of the
Haigazian Dynasty was Vahe. When Alexander the Great invaded Persia,
Vahe went to Darius' help with 40,000 infantry and 7,000 cavalry;
but Alexander conquered first Darius and then Vahe (328 B.C.),
and annexed both Persia and Armenia. Thus came to an end the first
Armenian dynasty, after an existence of 1922 years.